Lionel looked up at him.
“What are you saying?” he asked in English.
Sakr-el-Bahr bent over him, and his face as all could see was evil and mocking. No doubt he spoke to him in English also, but no more than a murmur reached the straining ears of Rosamund, though from his countenance she had no doubt of the purport of his words. And yet she was far indeed from a correct surmise. The mockery in his countenance was but a mask.
“Take no heed of my looks,” he was saying. “I desire them up yonder to think that I abuse you. Look as a man would who were being abused. Cringe or snarl, but listen. Do you remember once when as lads we swam together from Penarrow to Trefusis Point?”
“What do you mean?” quoth Lionel, and the natural sullenness of his mien was all that Sakr-el-Bahr could have desired.
“I am wondering whether you could still swim as far. If so you might find a more appetizing supper awaiting you at the end—aboard Sir John Killigrew’s ship. You had not heard? The Silver Heron is at anchor in the bay beyond that headland. If I afford you the means, could you swim to her do you think?”
Lionel stared at him in profoundest amazement. “Do you mock me?” he asked at length.
“Why should I mock you on such a matter?”
“Is it not to mock me to suggest a way for my deliverance?”
Sakr-el-Bahr laughed, and he mocked now in earnest. He set his left foot upon the rowers’ stretcher, and leaned forward and down his elbow upon his raised knee so that his face was close to Lionel’s.